We are not begging India to play us: PCB chairman

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Shaharyar Khan says Pakistan is not begging India to play bilateral series with them, an Indian news agency PTI reported on Friday.

Shaharyar says the PCB is well within its rights to push the Indian cricket board into honouring the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for six bilateral series between the two countries.

“We are not begging them to play us. Please don’t get that impression. But [BCCI] signed a proper MoU with us to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023 and they did not meet their commitment,” PTI quotes the PCB supremo as saying.

“It is our right as a cricket nation to push them to honour the MoU. They immediately owe us at least two home series as the last full bilateral series was held in India in 2007. In the MoU, Pakistan was to host four series between 2015 and 2023,” he says.

In July this year, PTI quoting “some inside sources” reported that the heads of PCB and BCCI had a meeting on the sidelines of ICC’s annual conference in Edinburgh and exchanged thoughts on resuming dialogue to hold bilateral series between the two cricket-mad nations.

As per reports, both Shaharyar and Anurag Thakur agreed to talk to their respective governments on the issue and will look to hold a series in 2017.

India halted cricket matches with Pakistan in the wake of the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai.

Pakistan paid a short visit to India to play two Twenty20 and three one-day internationals in December 2012 but that failed to revive the bilateral series.

In July last year, BCCI president Anurag Thakur said cricket was not possible under the current strained relationship between the two countries.